Category Archives: "Trends & Culture"

The Queen-inspired film Bohemian Rhapsody film was poorly rated by critics, yet became a big box office hit. Earlier this year, the same thing happened to Hugh Jackman’s The Greatest Show musical film about the life of PT Barnum. Why are critics so out of touch with what real people like? And why do we love the

As Washington Redskin’s running back Chris Thompson shares, “Fantasy football, it makes us not human. It’s almost like people think we’re just robots out there, performing for you.” In a sport sometimes described as our modern day gladiator ring due to how often the sport causes long term inury and even death among its participants, Thompson has a

This week the Library of Congress mapped out an ambitious vision to expand its collection of digital content and broaden access to all of it. On the surface, cataloging all of this data seems like the ultimate impossible task because of how exponentially it is growing. It’s hard to imagine how any one group will be able

I remember last year I was walking past some trendy retail stores in NY and I saw a few handbags with the Pan Am logo. Apparently there is a whole historical foundation and store featuring all kinds of retro products like t-shirts and travel kits. The airline may have died but the brand is alive. I

About a year and a half ago, a Japanese company called Gatebox released a depressing preview video of a new AI powered “Holographic Wife” that would offer lonely young Japanese salarymen companionship at home. The character is based on anime and stand about 8 inches tall inside a glass box. This week the company finally released their actual

Earlier this week the US government had to officially ask people to stop jumping out of moving cars to dance in the streets in response to a viral dance challenge for one of Drake’s songs. About the same time I first read this story, for some reason another story and video about how you can

British supermarkets are quickly becoming the unexpected pioneers in adding more empathy into retail. In January, Tesco introduced a “slow checkout line” for customers who have dementia or otherwise need more time to check out. This week, Morrisons, another British supermarket chain, announced it would have “quiet hours” to help autistic shoppers to have a

Back when I worked at a marketing agency I remember those times when I would see a campaign so inspired it would immediately make me wish I had thought of it. This new effort from FCB New York is one of those envy-inducing efforts. The goal is to position LG TVs as the ones that

Facebook recently added a feature to help you track how much time you spend on the platform. Instagram will now show a checkmark when you are done scrolling through your friends’ updates from the past two days. A recent NY Times feature even proposed that this might be the summer of “JOMO” (the joy of

The idea that neighbors might want the food you won’t eat might seem far fetched depending on where you live. Yet the hyperlocal food sharing app called Olio just picked up another $6 million in funding and has already expanded to over 40 countries with rapid growth. More than 400,000 food items have been shared since the app started